We present NeST, a flexible software-only storage appliance designed to meet the storage needs of the Grid. NeST has three key features that make it well-suited for deployment in a Grid environment. First, NeST provides a generic data transfer architecture that supports multiple data transfer protocols (including GridFTP and NFS), and allows for the easy addition of new protocols. Second, NeST is dynamic, adapting itself on-the-fly so that it runs effectively on a wide range of hardware and software platforms. Third, NeST is Grid-aware, implying that features that are necessary for integration into the Grid, such as storage space guarantees, mechanisms for resource and data discovery, user authentication, and quality of service, are a part of the NeST infrastructure.
Citation:
John Bent, Venkateshwaran Venkataramani, Nick LeRoy, Alain Roy, Joseph Stanley, Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau, Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau, Miron Livny, "Flexibility, Manageability, and Performance in a Grid Storage Appliance," hpdc, pp.3, 11th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC-11 '02), 2002